


Chrome

by hellkitty



Category: Almost Human
Genre: F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 07:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2980220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saw a prompt for Yuletide wanting to see some Valerie Stahl but forgot to note the person's name because it's been THAT kind of year. So, yeah, if you want some Stahl-centric mini-casefic, here you go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chrome

“Detective Stahl,” Dorian said, sliding into step next to Victoria as she mounted the steps to County Hospital. The day was heavy and grey, the smog that hazed around the City sinking lower to the ground.

“Dorian. Glad you could meet me.” Their footsteps fell together on the concrete, pausing at the same moment before the door, waiting for the pneumatics to whoosh it open, take them from the thick grey air to the thin, too-bright sterile light of the hospital. She’d never liked the smell--too clean, too empty, and it always carried bad things on its antiseptic tang.

“Captain Maldonado tasked me to keep up to date on John’s status.”

Uh huh. “And that’s the only reason?”

“I admit to some curiosity.”

“That makes both of us,” she admitted. “Do we have any idea--?”

“Not that I can think. But--”

Great, mutual interruption. “But Internal Affairs thought you knew something.”

Dorian gave a sigh that was far more human than anything she’d heard from an MX. “The benefit is at least I did not have to debate lying to them.”

“There is that.” She flashed her badge at the orderly by the large red and white striped bay door, marked ‘quarantine’ in large grey letters. He nodded, but then put out a hand to stop Dorian.

“Not you.”

“Why not him?” Shit. She really wasn’t in the mood for this.

“Only associates of the patient are allowed.”

“I told you,” Dorian murmured, folding his hands into his pockets. “It’s all right. I can wait here.”

“It’s not all right, Dorian. You’re his partner.” Valerie narrowed her eyes, until her gaze caught something on the side of his badge. She leaned in, barely mouthing the words, and tried--well, not too hard--to hide the smirk as the man nodded, and keyed something in his device.

“O-of course, ma’am.” A wan smile flashed vaguely in Dorian’s direction, eyes sliding off.  “He’s certainly allowed.”

***

It was probably the height of tautology to say that John Kennex was not a good patient. He was a terrible patient, the definition of IMpatient.

And yes, he was far too proud of that little pun, too.

Sitting in an iso-tent has that effect on the psyche, he figured, the same way Rudy was a little, you know...loopy from all that time in the lab. And Maldonado’s crack about him finally getting a chance to catch up on his vids had just been hiLARious.

No, wait, the exact opposite of hilarious. Which was this.

The comm system gave its weird little tinny ping. “Already gave enough blood,” he griped. Damn doctors and their tests. And more tests, and testing their tests. It made him, you know, testy. “And if you think you’re going to try with that probe again--”

“Probe?”

Aw shit. He knew that voice, even through the distortion of the bad comm line. Dorian.

“That sounds like a hell of a story, John.” Aaaaand another voice he really didn’t want commenting on the whole probe situation.

“If you’ve smuggled bourbon in here, I might be inclined to tell it to you.” Like he was ever that lucky. Still, he could dream. Or at least deflect. For his dignity’s sake, since he was propped on a bed, with an IV line running into his arm.

“Can I get a raincheck on that?” Stahl, stepping into blurry view on the other side of the plastic tent they had him in.

“I suppose,” he said. “But the story loses something when I’m not wearing...this fetching number.” He was pretty sure they were adding insult to injury with the hospital gown with the little smiley faces all over it.

“I like it,” Dorian said. “I think it brings out your dimples.”

“I got dimples I could bring--” Wait. No. Stahl’s here, John. Manners. Or at least decency. Right. Okay.

“I’m all eyes,” Stahl said, and even through the scrim of plastic, he could see the cheeky grin. Now, yeah, dimples looked better on her.

“Going to raincheck that, too, Stahl.” Because if he was going to get naked in front of her, it wasn’t going to be in a room with paper sheets. “But I suppose you didn’t come here in hopes of getting a show.” He swung his leg on the edge of the bed, the stump still carefully hidden under the paper bedsheet. Because no way he was ready for that. Especially not with Stahl here.

“We wanted to see how you were doing, John,” Dorian said. “And--”

“And to ask you exactly what the hell you were thinking, Kennex.”

Stahl looked better with the smile, he thought. “Look. I thought I saw. Something.”

“Something.” Stahl wasn’t buying it. He was a shitty salesman, anyway.

“Someone,” Dorian said, his voice that cool smooth tone that betrayed nothing, other than that Kennex was so totally busted.

“Someo--Anna. You saw Anna Moore. Didn’t you?” He could feel Stahls eyes peering through the quarantine tent, trying to read some minute flicker of his eyes or mouth or hand, or something. Some spooky Chrome power.

Right. Lie and save some dignity--or, hell, he wouldn’t save anything, because she’d probably strip the lie off him like the paper sheets he was on. “Yeah. I saw Anna. It had to be her.”

“But what would she be doing outside the Wall?”

The shrug Kennex gave was genuine enough. “No idea. Believe me, crossing the Barrier was the last thing I’d wanted to do.” No one left the City, no one went to the blocked-off areas. This ridiculous quarantine was only part of the reason. The fact he’d come back at all was another.

“I can analyze the footage, Detective Stahl,” Dorian said.

“Footage? What footage?”

“There’s surveillance on the Wall, John,” Stahl said.

“It gets degraded from Old Town,” Dorian supplied, his gaze distant, “but images can be triangulated and reconstructed.” His mouth pulled down at the corners. “I believe I will need Rudy’s help for this.”

“Rudy. You’re not bringing Rudy into this,” Kennex shook his head, as though hoping the motion would be contagious.

“We need his help, John. If we can figure out what you saw, what was out there--”

“Maldonado can only keep IA from you for so long, John,” Stahl said. He’d always pegged her for a ‘cut to the chase’ type of girl. He just wished it was a different chase right now.

“Just tell them I’m, you know, still contagious. With whatever the hell they think I’ve got.”  Who knew?  Not like they even let him see his records. 

“The story is that you collapsed, John,” Stahl said. “I think everyone would rather play this ‘better safe than sorry’.”

Collapsed? Had he? He didn’t remember. He remembered Anna, in little bright flashes, the way you remember a love--the curve of a cheek, the sway of a stride, the way a foot planted, turned, the way a hand smoothed hair over her ear. It had been her, he knew it.

But he didn’t remember any passing out, any collapse, just running after her like she was some beautiful illusion, a mirage darting ahead of him into the swirling shadows of Old Town.

***

“Here to spring me?” Kennex slipped into the passenger seat, with only one wistful glance at the driver’s side. Valerie pretended not to see the way he shifted his leg as he sat down, unused to having it since, well, whatever had happened.  It had been a hell of a week, but he was sprung, free as a...well, as anything here.  

“I figured you might appreciate a ride home, NOT courtesy of County.”

“I owe you a favor.”

“And I owe you that raincheck,” Valerie said, reaching in the back and pulling out the bottle of bourbon, tossing it over to him.

He examined the bottle, his mouth doing a half dozen gymnastic things, before he pried open the top. “Prosht. Or whatever.”

“Close enough,” Valerie said, steering the car smoothly into the evening traffic.

“You probably know a dozen ways to say that,” Kennex said, after a long, savoring sip.

“A few. Languages weren’t my specialty, though.”

“Specialty? I thought all you were all, you know...perfect.”

She gave a bark of a laugh that was a little harder than she’d intended. “I guess everyone can’t be perfectly perfect.”

He gave a grimace, like he figured out that he’d fumbled the ball. “Just can’t figure out why someone like you would want to be a cop.”

“Long story.”

“Long drive,” Kennex countered.

She didn’t need a pointer about the ‘someone like you’. But she was glad for the sluggish traffic, the brakelights and surge of traffic, to keep her occupied. “My parents spent a fortune--probably two--on me before I was even born. And then after. Nothing was too good for their little girl, you know?”

“Sounds...nauseatingly sweet.”

“If only.” They wanted a perfect child to have a perfect life--to be better and do better than they ever did.” She shrugged. “I don’t think it ever occurred to them that, you know, what they had was pretty good already.” Family, work, a home, each other. No small things.

“So you’re slumming with us.”

“No. It’s….I don’t know. It’s about being so ‘special’ that they expected you to be perfect. All the time.” It had been exhausting even as a child, where every mood, every emotion, every expression was analyzed like a symptom, a flaw. “It’s not like now, where at least they have schools like Mendel, communities, each other.”

“Yeah,” Kennex said wryly. “And we saw how well that worked.”

She gave a snort. “But that was almost a normal problem.”

“I think we might want to get some consensus about the definition of ‘normal’, there.”

“A girl’s feeling miserable and unworthy of a boy, like she’ll never been good enough, never be smart enough...something enough?” Oh, she could relate. No matter how high her marks, she’d felt like there was always more she should have done, a grade higher than perfect. And with men…? Her knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. “Oldest story in the world.”

“Second oldest,” Kennex corrected. “The oldest is the guy so confused by his feelings that he can’t even--Jesus, what proof is this, anyway?” He gave the bottle a showy squint. “You were saying, with your normal problems.”

She turned down into the parking lot under Kennex’s apartment complex, easing into a space before she answered. “It’s probably a normal problem, too. You just get so used to everything being special and different for you, maybe you lose the idea of normal.”

He reached over, holding out the bottle, as an offering. She could feel his handprint on the glass, warm and distantly intimate, holding it for a long moment.

“Sounds like evasion, Detective Stahl.”

“Valerie,” she corrected. It probably was evasion. Try again. “Why I became a cop? I wanted to do something. Something meaningful, more than making a pile of money or some artistic statement that...I don’t understand anyway. It’s not that those aren’t important either, though--”

Kennex chuckled. “I’m a cop, the son of a cop. I get that.”

She had earned this sip of bourbon, she figured, and it was not at all, in the least tiny bit, liquid courage. “I wanted to belong to something, too. Those kids, even at Mendel, they were all so...lonely.” All the other members of Electus were loners--bonds traders, artists, genius scientists.

“So you picked the biggest and most dysfunctional family in the City.” He quirked a smile. “Good job.”

She lifted the bottle from her mouth, exhaling the oaky vapor. “I figured I’d fit right in,” she said. “Besides, we Chromes don’t do things by halves. It’s the rules.” She turned to wink, to see the wink kindle into a smile on his face, a warm, relaxed smile she rarely saw. She wondered if she should kiss him. His breath would be smoky and warm from the bourbon, rich and heady. And she knew he was thinking it, too, their faces less than a hand’s span apart. She could feel his gaze on her mouth, following her tongue as it gave a not-at-all sexy, nervous lick, and she could imagine all too clearly the prickly stubble. Her own eyes lifted only with effort from his just-parted mouth, to the eyes, deep and brown like chocolate and promise.

And the moment ebbed, the chance passing, like a lantern dimming. But it didn’t feel like it slipped away, like a lost chance dropping between your fingers. It felt the tooth of a gear or the last wisp of the crescent moon, gone but echoing in its wake that it would be around again.

She pulled back, feeling an aching tug in her chest, as though some wire connected them and she was drawing back along it. She held the bottle out between them, again, the thing it did feel safe to share now, a secondhand kiss, like aged fire.

“The footage,” Kennex said, and she could hear the same want in his voice, raw and husky, clawing his way back from the edge. “Did you find anything?”

“It was a hologram,” she said, disappointed and relieved at the same time, wanting him to have pushed, even into her past, her life, instead of withdrawing into the present, but willing to let the moment rest like the bourbon, shimmering its heat in her belly. “Dorian’s trying to trace the holoprojection. The signal had to come from somewhere, someone.”

He nodded, and sighed, before taking another sip of the bottle, eyes sliding from her face, in the goldish light of the parking garage. “So,” he said, “I guess we’re no closer than before.” But his voice seemed full of meaning, plush and promising, and they both knew that they might be no closer, either way, but that gears had shifted, readying them to move.


End file.
